


Nice To (Finally) Meat You

by lapsus_calami



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, One Shot, is there such a thing as a postcard au, it's a total you've got mail thing, kind of, no it's definitely an au, sterek, there is now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsus_calami/pseuds/lapsus_calami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek almost throws out the random postcard from the drunk guy in Boston. He means to throw it away, really, he does. But instead he ends up sending one back. Turns out it's the best decision he's made in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nice To (Finally) Meat You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://tumblr.tastefullyoffensive.com/post/134882857417/photo-via-j0be) post on tumblr.
> 
> This was supposed to be a very short thing but...then it just kept going. I mean it's not _long_ , but it's not as short as it was supposed to be.

**Nice To (Finally) Meat You**

At first glance Derek nearly throws it away. He doesn’t know anyone from Boston; he doesn't know anyone from anywhere that sends him snail-mail to be honest so personal mail is an anomaly that is usually wrongly addressed. In hindsight, though, he’s very glad he reads it even if it confuses the hell out of him at first. 

All the card says is,  _“Hey, I used to live in your house. I’m drunk in boston, and it’s the only address I know. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. -SS.”_  It is surprisingly legible handwriting for a person who claims to be drunk enough to send a postcard to a stranger. The front of the postcard simply reads “I wish you were here” next to a barrel with “Samuel Adams Brewery Tour” on it.

One day later Derek is standing in line at a bookstore mentally amused at card with a ridiculous bumblebee wrapped up in Christmas lights and the words “O Christmas Bee!” boldly arranged around it. On impulse he buys it, scrawls, “ _Well I moved in three months ago. It’s a nice house. -DH_ ” on the back, and sends the card to Samuel Adams Brewery addressed to SS. 

Derek doesn’t really know why he sends a card back. The address is for a _bar_ for god’s sake, and a popular one at that. If Laura were here she’d have a whole speech of how pointless it is. But Derek is lonely and the postcard from some random drunk dude in Boston is the first thing Derek has really smiled at in weeks. So he sends one back.

A week later he gets a card with two slices of browned bread surrounded by confetti that reads “Toast To The New Year.” On the back is a new return address for a M. Stilinski followed by,  _“I do miss it. How’s the weather in good ole Cali? -SS.”_

Derek is surprised both by the fact that the postcard actually found its way to SS and that whoever SS is actually deigned to send another one back replying to Derek’s comment and asking a question. It isn’t until two weeks later that Derek stumbles across another postcard that he buys on impulse. 

This one simply reads “BUNdle up!” and has an admittedly adorable bunny rabbit wrapped in a scarf with a knit hat.  _“Bit colder than usual actually. There was even some snow. -DH.”_

He’s probably taken too long to reply, SS having no doubt forgotten all about the postcards, but a week later Derek gets an envelope in the mail. He opens it tentatively, surprised when a postcard and a photograph fall out. He looks at the postcard first smiling at the cartoon dinosaur and the words “It’s Been Ages Since We’ve Heard From You!” The “we’ve” has been scribbled out and replaced with an “I’ve.” On the back SS has just scrawled, _“Bet it’s not as cold as Boston. Maybe the picture will make your weather feel warmer. -SS”_ and drawn a crude shivering snowman. The picture turns out to be a man standing in snow that came up to above his knees. He was bundled up in a coat, gloves, scarf, and hat, holding on to a snow shovel and giving the camera a thumbs up as more snow fell around him. All Derek can really make out are his eyes, the lower half of his face obscured by his scarf, but he gets the distinct impression SS was smiling. On the back of the picture SS has written, _“Don’t be fooled by my happy demeanor. I hate the snow. Lydia made me smile.”_ Beneath that an unfamiliar and much neater handwriting reads, _“No I didn’t. Don’t let him lie to you, he loves the snow.”_

Derek outright laughs at that. He finds a card the next day with a bone that says, “I Found This Humerus,” and writes, _“If you hate snow so much what are you doing in Boston? –DH”_ on the back before dropping it in the mail.

Less than a week later another card is in Derek’s mailbox. SS has apparently taken Derek’s latest pun postcard as an invitation to declare a pun war. The card simply says “Here Comes” with a treble symbol beneath it. It actually takes Derek a moment to puzzle it out. On the other side SS has written, _“One, two, three, four, I challenge you to a pun war.”_ Beneath that is an answer to Derek’s question, _“I’m in Boston for school. What are you up to in Beacon Hills?”_

Derek spends one day trying to convince himself he is too old to engage in a postcard battle with a college student, but when he sees the perfect card on the rack at the gas station he can’t resist. “Need An Ark Built? I Noah Guy” it reads with a blue background and silhouette of a large boat. Derek finds himself smiling as he writes on the back, _“For when all that snow melts. I’m working at a library right now. What do you study?”_

After that follows a mini-war of who can find the best postcard pun. SS sends back one that has a picture of a brown blob with ears and a face that is supposedly a dog reading “Pugtato” and _“At the library? Ah, a person after my own soul. I’m a criminal justice major with a minor in mythological studies.”_

Derek mails one with a sausage on it reading, “Jokes about German Sausage are the wurst,” and, _“Criminal justice and mythological studies? That’s an odd combination. How’d you get into that?”_

SS returns one with a cartoon cow full of holes and the words “Holey Cow!” The exclamation point is scribbled out and replaced by an ellipsis and an arrow to flip it over. On the back is another ellipsis followed by, “ _that’s a loaded question. My dad was a sheriff, got me into law. Some weird shit went down my sophomore year of high school, got me into mythology._ ”

Derek blames the fact that SS got him thinking about mythology and subsequently werewolves for his next postcard saying “Venison for dinner? Oh deer,” and, “ _Sheriff huh? That’s cool. Must admit I’m curious about what went down in high school. You and your friends play with a ouija board?”_

SS’s next card reads, “You can’t have Manslaughter without Laughter.” On the back he’s written, _“Actually my friends and I pulled a I Know What You Did Last Summer. Nah, I’m just kidding.”_ Then there is several words that have been intensely scribbled out followed by, _“My friend was attacked, there were a lot of repercussions. It’s complicated.”_

Derek feels like he can hear SS’s tone in those last two words. A hesitancy in even admitting that little bit to a stranger on a postcard. Derek stares at the card for several days deliberating how to respond. Somewhere in there he makes a connection with the last name in the return address—Stilinski. Derek remembers the man; he’d been a deputy at the time of the fire but he’d been kind to Derek and Laura. He doesn’t remember the man’s son though. In a fit of justified paranoia Derek ends up running a web search for Sheriff Stilinski only to learn the man was killed on the job last January. His obituary states he is survived by his only son, again identified simply as M. Stilinski, who is currently attending school in Boston. 

After several more days of intensely conflicted ideas Derek ends up buying the cheesiest pun postcard he can find, one reading “I donut understand food jokes” around a giant sprinkle donut, and writes three drafts of what he should write on it on a separate sheet of paper before transferring it over. He’s glad he lives alone because Laura would definitely bust his chops about getting this worked up over some guy whose name he still doesn’t even know. So he just ignores his inner-Laura voice and carefully pens, _“You know, I think I actually remember your dad from when he was a deputy; he was a good man. I used to live in BH before, but moved away when I was sixteen. What are your plans after college?”_ After five minutes of gnawing on his lip he adds _“Derek”_ at the end.

It is a week before a garish yellow card comes back with a head of lettuce and the words “lettuce say thanks” beneath it. The message on the back is prefaced with Derek’s name—he tries hard to ignore the flutter of warmth that causes—and followed by, _“He really was, wasn’t he? I really miss him. So much. Like a lot. This was my first birthday without him and you know what I don’t think I handled it all that well. Sorry that was really personal. I’m drunk. Again. Lydia tells me its rude to mail stuff to people when I’m drunk and sad so…sorry. –SS.”_

Derek deliberates between sending SS a birthday card for two days before deciding that sticking with postcards makes more sense. He ends up buying a generic birthday card—one that reads, “I got you this cheesy birthday card,” on the front—and tearing off the rest so that it is basically a postcard. After three hours of stressing over what to write he settles on, _“Just wanted to say Happy Birthday. I’m sure your dad is proud. And I really don’t mind if you mail me things. I don’t really know a lot of people so you’re like the only person I get mail from and it’s actually kind of nice. –Derek.”_ After a moment of indecision he tacks on, “ _If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you now?”_ And after yet another moment of indecision he also adds, “ _I’m twenty-seven._ ”

Because Derek should really tamp down on any sort of budding feelings whatsoever if the next card comes back with an age beneath—what would be appropriate—twenty-three? Twenty-four? God, what are the acceptable social norms for ages of interest anyway? Derek certainly doesn’t know.

He gets an actual card in the mail a few days later with a dinosaur, a dodo bird, a caveman, and a cavewoman on the front and the words, “I gathered all your friends together to wish you a Happy Birthday.” The words “wish you a Happy Birthday” have been scribbled out and replaced with “say Holy Crap You’re Old!”

Despite himself Derek is amused even if his stomach sinks a little at the words. Obviously if SS has taken the time to mail a card back he doesn’t care too much. He flips it open smiling a little at the, _“Nah, I’m just kidding,”_ right at the top. Underneath SS has written, _“Thanks for the birthday card and good to know I’m not annoying you. I too find this nice. –SS.”_ At the bottom, _“Oh, and I just turned twenty-one,”_ is scrawled like SS had almost forgotten Derek had asked _._

Derek buys the first postcard he sees that evening—a generic “Greeting’s From California” one—writing, _“But you were drunk at a bar on Christmas???”_ on it before slapping on a stamp, penning in the address he refuses to admit he’s memorized because even he realizes it is kind of pathetic to be this enamored by someone he’s never actually talked to, and dropping in the USPS blue box. 

Another thing Derek refuses to admit doing is checking his mailbox obsessively for the next few days until he gets a black “I Found This Corny” card with an ear of corn on it. _“Really, Derek? A greeting’s from Cali card? Shameful. Was it just the first card you could find? And yes, I was drunk on Christmas. I’m certainly not the only underage person who was. As for the bar, I know a guy. Boyd and I go way back. He’s the reason I got your first card.”_

Derek puts a little more time into selecting his next card, picking up an orange “You Can’t Be Beet” one with a cartoon image of a beet plant on it from a small shop in the next town over. It’s oddly unnerving yet satisfying that SS realized Derek had just bought the first card he came across. _“Sorry, it just surprised me. Give my thanks to Boyd. As for the card I just thought you might be missing Cali.”_

SS’s next card has a giant green frog and says, “I toad you I’d write,” in a speech bubble over its head. “ _I do miss it sometimes. Other times I’m happy to be away, especially after last year. I know a lot of people want me to come home and I’d always planned to, but now I honestly don’t know if I will. Boyd says you’re welcome by the way, or you know, he grunted at me, which basically means the same thing. Speaking of missing home, I know you said you were originally from BH, but where did you move back from?”_

 _“New York actually. My sister moved us out there after a fire that burned down our house. She still lives there and my other sister lives in Argentina. Sometimes I miss the city, but part of me is happy to be back in my hometown I think,”_ Derek writes on the back of a postcard with a dancing cloud and a terrible joke—“What kind of shorts do clouds wear? Thunderwear.”

The next card in Derek’s mailbox is from Panama City. Derek can practically hear the volume in SS’s words, written in all caps and pressed hard into the paper. _“DEREK, MY MAN, I AM IN ~~PANMA~~ ~~PANEMA~~ ~~PANIMA~~ OH FUCK IT. I’M AT THE BEACH, BABY, AND I’M FINALLY REALLY WARM AGAIN. ALSO I’M PRETTY DRUNK AND LYDIA THINKS I’M STUPID BUT THAT'S NOT NEWS SO WHATEV. I’LL BE BACK HOME BY NEXT MONDAY. AND BEFORE YOU ASK YES YES I AM DRUNK.” _

So Derek simply mails a sunny California postcard that says, _“How was the beach? And isn’t it May? Shouldn’t even Boston be warm by now?”_ and waits.

Seven days later he gets a Panama Beach “Been There, Done That” postcard. _“I think I’m still hungover a bit to be honest,”_ it reads, _“Even the sun on your postcard hurt my eyes. And Boston is warm but Florida is_ hot. _So from the Big Apple, huh? Been there more than a few times myself. My best friend’s girlfriend goes to NYU so he, Lydia, and I all visit periodically. I’d write more but I think I need to sink into a coma for a few days now and I’m not even sure I’m making sense so...I was going to say ttyl but that seems odd on a postcard. –SS.”_ It’s the first time SS has signed a postcard in a while, and it reminds Derek of a question he’s been wondering about.

Derek comes across a postcard that says, “I Mustache You A Question,” with a big and black mustache in place of the word. Underneath is, “but I’ll shave it for later.” On whim he buys it and scrawls, _“What is your name? You’ve always signed SS but your address says M. Stilinski,”_ on the back and sends it before he can think better of it.

He then spends the next few days panicking because if SS wanted to tell Derek his name then surely he would have already, right? After five days he thinks his panicking was warranted but then he gets a letter in the mail. Like an actual, bona fide letter.

After that most of their correspondence is through letters

Through the letters Derek learns that SS’s name is Stiles, or rather Stiles a nickname. His real name starts with an M and he refuses to tell Derek what it really is regardless of how many pun filled postcards Derek sends. Apparently Scott, Stiles’ best friend, is the only living soul in Stiles’ social circle who knows his real name.

They start off sharing the base details—family, friends, superficial stories of their past—and slowly work up to telling one another deeper details—like about Stiles’ mother and the fire that killed most of Derek’s family. With each letter Derek feels like he gets to know another piece of Stiles and Derek sends a bit of himself to Stiles each time he drops an envelope in the mail. 

Laura finds his infatuation—her word not his—with Stiles charming and amusing while Cora just wants to know why the hell he and Stiles haven’t exchanged phone numbers or emails at the very least to make everything easier. Derek just scowls at her every time she brings it up because he doesn’t have an answer, not really. He can’t explain it but for some reason it seems important that they keep up the letters and postcards. Like somehow it’s more precious when all Derek has are Stiles’ written words and a small amount photographs. So he never asks for Stiles’ number, and Stiles never asks for his.

In-between frequent letters they still send intermittent postcards especially when they travel anywhere. Derek gains a collection of postcards from NYC, a few more from a variety of beaches, and even one from Ireland. Derek sends one from when he visits Cora in Argentina and another when he visits Laura in NYC. After that one he gets a card with an angry green fog that says “I’m Hoppin’ Mad” with the words, _“You were in NYC???? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to the east coast???? I would have come down to see you!”_ scribbled on the back. In his next letter Derek assures Stiles he’ll let him know the next time he plans on visiting anywhere on the East coast. Unfortunately, as luck should have it, the next time Derek visits Laura, Stiles can’t make it down to the city. Instead he sends Derek a “So Sad To Have Mist It” postcard that says, _“Allow me to start my three part apology by saying I am so sorry. Actually that’s all I have. Really, I’m sorry. Tell Laura I said hi.”_ Derek sends one back that says "We All Missed you Berry Much."

Exactly one year after Stiles sent the first postcard he sends another of a llama in a Christmas wreathe with “Fa La La La Lama” on the front, and _“It’s our anniversary! P.S. I’m not drunk this time.”_ on the back. There’s a strong possibility Derek has pinned it up on the corkboard over his desk right under the first postcard Stiles had sent. Derek returns one of a reindeer dancing around a candy cane with the words “Pole Dancer” and a, _“Merry Christmas and Happy New Years, Stiles.”_

A week after New Years Derek gets a letter that basically boils down to one wonderful sentence— _“So I graduate in May, and I’m actually thinking of moving back to Beacon Hills.”_

He feels more elated at that than he maybe should.

They exchange a lot of letters during Stiles’ final semester. Mid-April, after Stiles’ birthday, Derek gets a letter that ends with, “ _I have a plane ticket and will get in on the twentieth of May. Pick me up from the airport?”_

He sends a postcard of a happily dancing skeleton mariachi band. On the back he simply writes, _“Of course.”_

* * *

Derek is nervous. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so nervous in his life. And it’s crazy because it’s _Stiles_ . But it’s _Stiles_ so Derek’s nervous.

He’s watching the crowd, searching for a familiar face, one that he’s only ever seen in pictures. His heart’s beating so fast he’s afraid it might actually beat out of his chest like one of those old cartoons, and his hands are sweating in a wildly unattractive way. It’s stupid, but Derek is kind of revealing in the intensity because this is the first time he’s felt this way in a long time and it finally feels okay again.

He sees Stiles before Stiles sees him, and for a moment he can stare unabashedly at candid Stiles as a living, breathing person and it’s wonderful. He’s actually taller than Derek had thought and leaner. He’s staring intently at his phone cradled in incredible looking hands and Derek suddenly and intensely wants to put his number in Stiles’ contacts. Then Stiles looks up, catching sight of Derek and, as cliché as it sounds, he’s about five hundred times more beautiful when he smiles.

“Hi,” Derek says breathlessly as soon as Stiles is close enough to hear.

Stiles grins at him. “Hi,” he says and his voice is a little deeper than Derek would have expected yet somehow exactly how Derek thought he’d sound. He halts right in front of Derek and they end up just staring at each other for a long moment.  

“Uh,” Derek runs his hand through his hair, thoughts swirling around too fast for him to pick any one train to follow. It’s wonderful to finally be talking to Stiles in real time, but having to decide right now what say and knowing he’ll get an immediate answer without having to wait for days is also extremely intimidating.

He opens his mouth again but is cut off when Stiles holds up one finger for Derek to wait and begins digging through his bag saying, “I have something for you.”

After a moment of rummaging Stiles hums triumphantly and pulls a postcard from his bag smirking as he holds it out for Derek to take. Derek accepts it, giving Stiles a questioning look before inspecting the picture. On the card is a bottle of ketchup saying, “It was nice to meat you,” with a carrot symbol inserting the word “finally” between “to” and “meat,” and a hotdog replying, “Yeah, hope to see you again soon so we can ketchup.”

Stiles is still smirking at him so Derek turns the card over an answering grin stretching over his lips as he reads, _“Have dinner with me tomorrow?”_ It's signed with a series of letters that start with an M and look like someone just randomly hit letters on a keyboard. After a moment Derek realizes it's Stiles' name. 

Derek looks back up at Stiles who is watching him with a hint of apprehension as if he could ever actually refuse such an invitation. He smiles again, wider this time, and says, “It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://lapsuscalamiwriting.tumblr.com)


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